UConn assistant coaches Shea Ralph, left, and Marisa Moseley, center, congratulate Napheesa Collier as she comes out of a game earlier this season.

UConn assistant coaches Shea Ralph, left, and Marisa Moseley, center, congratulate Napheesa Collier as she comes out of a game earlier this season.

Photo: Jessica Hill — The Associated Press File Photo

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UConn women’s basketball team has piled up assists at record pace

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STORRS >> When the season kicked off four months ago, the UConn women’s basketball coaching staff had plenty of expectations about what kind of the team the Huskies were going to be. It’s safe to say that challenging some of the program’s passing records was not exactly part of what Hall of Fame head coach Geno Auriemma or his staff was expecting.

Yet, when top-seeded UConn begins its quest for an unprecedented fifth straight NCAA Division I women’s basketball national title when it hosts Albany at Gampel Pavilion on Saturday (11 a.m., ESPN2), the Huskies ability to set up their teammates ranks among the best in the program’s illustrious history.

More Information

Albany at No. 1 UConn

• When: Saturday, 11 a.m.

• Where: Gampel Pavilion, Storrs

• Records: Albany 21-11; UConn 32-0

• TV: ESPN2

• Radio: WTIC-1080; WELI-960

• Internet: ESPN3

KEEP AN EYE ON

• Piling up the points: Sophomores Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier, who have combined to average 41.2 points per game, are the third highest-scoring duo among women’s Division I teams. Washington’s tandem of Kelsey Plum and Chantel Osahor lead the way at 46.9 PPG while Syracuse (ironically in the Storrs subregional as well) gets 42.3 points per game from Alexis Peterson and Brittney Sykes. The 1,318 points scored by Samuelson and Collier are the seventh most in program history. At their current pace, they would top the program record of 1,444 points set during the 2009-10 season by Maya Moore and Tina Charles early in the Bridgeport regional final.

• First-round dominance: Posting lopsided victories is not exactly a new phenomenon for the Huskies, but UConn has been especially dominant in NCAA first-round tournament games. Since 1995, the Huskies have won their first-round games by an average of 47.8 points with just one game decided by fewer than 25 points. UConn’s seven 100-point games and eight wins by at least 50 points are the most in the first round since the NCAA went to a 64-team field in 1994. UConn’s margin of victory has been higher than the opposing team’s scoring output a total of 12 times since 1997.

• Right at home: Each of the four teams in the Storrs subregional had an Ontario native taking part in Friday’s press conferences. No team playing in Storrs in the next three days has more Canadian players than Albany. Second-leading scorer Jessica Fequiere is a native of Montreal who was limited to 38 games in injury-plaqued freshman and sophomore seasons. Senior Cassandra Edwards hails from Brampton, Ontario and along with freshman Mackenzie Trpcic, a Hamilton native, was coached in AAU ball by Richard Nurse who is the father of UConn guard Kia Nurse.

• More history on tap?: Teams that squared off in the NCAA women’s Division I title game have played in the following year’s tournament on six occasions. All six have taken place in the Final Four. If UConn and Syracuse win on Saturday it would mark the first time such a matchup has taken place this early in the tournament.

PROBABLE STARTERS

ALBANY

Player Pos. PPG

Imani Tate G 19.1

Khepera Stokes G/F 3.0

Jessica Fequiere G/F 12.4

Bailey Hixson F 8.9

Heather Forster F 4.4

UCONN

Player Pos. PPG

Saniya Chong G 8.2

Kia Nurse G 12.2

Katie Lou Samuelson G 21.0

Gabby Williams F 13.2

Napheesa Collier F 20.2

— Jim Fuller

“With all of our teams it is kind of part of our style of play but I don’t know if you would have asked us at the beginning of the year we would have told you we are a great passing team,” said UConn assistant coach Shea Ralph, who works with the Huskies’ guards. “I think it came along with all the different things we work on, all the different roles they had to step into. We knew Gabby (Williams) was a really good passer, but she just wasn’t put in that position and we didn’t need her to do it as much as we need her to do this year. They have really embraced that in terms of how we play. That is how we always have played, but I don’t know if we thought we’d be as good at it as we are this year.”

UConn graduated All-Americans Moriah Jefferson, Breanna Stewart and Morgan Tuck who just happened to rank No. 1, 2 and 3 in assists on the Huskies’ undefeated national championship team a season ago.

Gabby Williams, Napheesa Collier and Saniya Chong combined for 119 assists and 106 turnovers a season ago and that simply wasn’t a ratio that was going be good enough with all three having the ball in their hands much more frequently than at any other time in their careers.

Williams happens to be UConn’s leader with 168 assists, Chong led the Division I in assist/turnover ratio for much of the season and headed into the NCAA tournament third in that category. Collier has gone from being a player with more turnovers than assists to being one with 23 more assists than turnovers.

“Coach (Auriemma) and CD (associate head coach Chris Dailey) have always made sure we always know how to move the ball, where everybody touches the ball on every possession,” Williams said. “We are not the type of team that comes down and shoots a (quick) shot, we try to make the defense play for 30 seconds.”

The philosophy has certainly worked.

If Katie Samuelson has three assists and Crystal Dangerfield dishes out two then this will be the third UConn team to have five players with at least 100 assists with Williams, Chong and Kia Nurse having already reached triple digits.

The first time it happened was in 2010-11 with Maya Moore, Kelly Faris, Tiffany Hayes, Bria Hartley and Lorin Dixon all posting at least 106 assists. Two years ago it was accomplished by Jefferson, Breanna Stewart, Morgan Tuck, Kia Nurse and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis.

Samuelson can also join Mosqueda-Lewis as the only UConn players with 100 3-pointers and 100 assists in the same season.

“I like the assists more because I wouldn’t expect it and they wouldn’t expect it either,” Samuelson said

When Samuelson hits the 100-100 club it would mean the only two members are graduates of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California.

“I think Mater Dei definitely developed my overall game,” Samuelson said. “Coach (Kevin) Kiernan does a great job and he knows what he’s doing, but I think I learned a lot of it coming from (older sisters) Karlie and Bonnie as well because I think they are both are pretty good passers.”

UConn has 747 assists which ranks 12th in program history. If the Huskies keep up their current pace and they don’t stumble in the next two weeks, they would set the program and women’s Division I record of 850 during the 2013-14 season in the national semifinals.

The Huskies are also on a program record pace in terms of assist/turnover ratio. UConn’s program record is 1.82 set last year and with 747 assists and 388 turnovers, the Huskies are currently sitting with a ratio of 1.93.

“It is possible when you don’t have a dominant ball handler, when you look back recently we ran out offense through Stefanie (Dolson), she was our dominant ball handler, she touched it all the time. A lot of other people made plays and then Moriah had the ball in her hands all the time. This year we really don’t have anybody that has their hands on it all the time. Gabby’s been kind of in the middle of everything. It is spread out and the fact that everybody feels really confident with the ball in their hands and the other key to assists are guys who finish. If you look at guys shooting percentage, you go, ‘I can get some awards just passing it is Pheesa (Collier) every time.’ It is just one of those unique seasons.”

Ralph credits much of the success to the fact that except when reserve Natalie Butler is in the game, UConn has five players on the court who have been and in many cases still are perimeter players.

“It makes us a lot harder to guard and it is something we really try to focus on every year,” Ralph said. “In terms of our personnel, probably the thing that helps us the most is that all of our players are pretty much guards, the only one who wouldn’t be is Natalie and she is still a pretty good passer for a big kid. Most of the time we have five guards on the floor who can do multiple things with the ball. I think with recruiting, we target people who can dribble, pass and shoot, but you just never know how they are going to respond when they get here with the pressure and if they are put in different positions like we have done with Gabby and Pheesa. But they really blossomed and I think they are getting better a lot faster because we are letting them do more of that.”